New subject: Blog Entries (Bauer fork)

27 Mar 2007

...
  From: "Jeff Raymond"
&lt;jeff.raymond(a)internationalhouseofbacon.com&gt; 
...
  When the mainstream media consistently uses blogs as
reliable
 information for their stories, there's absolutely no reason why we can't
 do the same thing.

 -Jeff 
It's a question of the "web of trust." My belief is that part of a
journalist's skill involves knowing what sources to trust (and in obtaining reliable
information from not-fully-reliable sources through various means, such as cross-checking
with other not-fully-reliable sources). My belief is also that a journalist measures a
blog posting, or anything else, against a large body of background that _he_ has, that _I_
don't have, that _he_ can use to judge the credibility of the source. 

Just because the New York Times' source for _a_ story is _a_ blog doesn't mean
that _any_ blog has the same reliability as The New York Times.

It's like saying that a "when mainstream surgeons consistently use scalpels as
reliable tools for cutting into living flesh, there's no reason why we can't do
the same thing."

Of course, if one believes that the existence of bad journalist and bad surgeons implies
that journalists and surgeons don't genuinely possess any special skills, then it
would follow that anyone can use a blog (or a scalpel) just as safely as a journalist (or
a surgeon).  

It was Dilbert's pointy-haired boss reasoned that "anything I don't
understand must be easy..."

Re: [WikiEN-l] Blog Entries (Bauer fork)